Hello all,

Over the years I've noticed that miniature ikebanas are a favourite with many people. Non-ikebanists in particular. And, I have to admit, I love them too. It's important to note, however, that the principles of ikebana should be adhered to, even in such tiny arrangements. We should avoid dropping some small material in a little vase and call it ikebana. Mass, line and colour as well as asymmetry should be incorporated. Whereas I would normally use a variety of interesting little vases, in this case I chose to use the same tiny glass bottles.

I took photographs of the individual arrangements, below, to show the details.

In this next arrangement I used the seed pods of Port St Johns creeper, which is growing over the fence from my neighbours. This creeper produces clusters of pink, trumpet like flowers and later these long bean like pods, which can vary in size from about 15 cm to 45 cm in length. The glass vase is one I watched being hand blown, to my specifications, down in the Peninsula some years ago.

Vicky, also, found some of the same pods, which are much bigger, stronger and darker than mine. She made some lovely arrangements. Here's one.

A late bloomer. The gloriosa lily in this next arrangement surprised me by flowering so late. All the other plants in my garden have heavy seed pods and haven't had flowers for some weeks. I used umbrella grass stems to loosely follow the shape of the container.

And now, an early bloomer. The very first flower of my favourite camellia, the Kamo Hon Ami, had to be used. and what better accompanying material than pine.

This next material has me perplexed. I don't know if it is a very late bloomer, a very early one or just confused. It is a single flower that I found in my shrub of Japanese Flowering quince. My plant is usually very late to bloom compared to others I see around Melbourne, much to my chagrin, so this is odd, to say the least.

Vicky gave me some aluminium shavings and I used them with my trusty agapanthus. The second photograph was taken 17 days later. I love the colour change.

I must share with you a somewhat amusing problem I'm dealing with. I've had long, acrylic nails for some years, not just for aesthetics but, also, because they are much stronger that mine. I'm quite adept at doing all chores, including typing with long nails. With social distancing, however, I can't go to the salon and get them maintained as I normally do, so three of them have fallen off. Typing this post with three very short nails and seven very long  ones is quite frustrating. It has taken me twice as long as it would have because I keep going back and correcting mistakes. I hope I got all of them.

Bye for now,
Emily